[Date handwritten]
                                                                         May 31
Dear Mr. Hemingway----
	I will tell you alittle[sic] story about what my husband did with 
one gun he had and then perhaps you will not do anything so foolish
as to send him another.  Besides if you should, I would be inclined 
to black your eye.  Here is why.  It seemed to Tom one night that he 
must have a beer before retiring, in spite of the fact that he had 
been drinking alcohol in one form or another for quite some time pre-
vious. 
      Excuse me.  I get this far, after having Tom whoop "He's sending 
me a gun!" and then read your letter, and now I rather feel the
story will keep, [hand written: and that the gun will be cherished.]
	Here are the circumstances under which your letter arrived.  It is 
Thursday;  Tom has Wednesday and Thursday nights off and I have Thursday,
away from the OWI where I play nursemaid to sixteen machines, AP, UP and
the rest.  As you can imagine I spend most of my time watching for items 
on Spain and sneaking the carbone into my purse, which later Tom and
I hold up to the light, and speculate about, and then we get on to the 
same old talk, when we're in Spain.  Tom does the talking and I just 
watch that good look/that comes to his eyes, which is a good change from the usual
look, which means that he's thinking that he's getting older every hour 
and every hour without a Spanish Republic is and hour lost from the good 
life. I don't mean just his own life, although a person can't help being 
concerned about their individual lifetime, but the good life in general,
for everyone. 
So we had ten good hours' sleep, with both of us in the bed at the 
same time.  This happens twice a week.  The rest of the time the bed's never
cold, what with Tom working at night.  We get up and Tom went out to look
for eggs, which there is a shortage of and returned without any (warishell)
and told me there was no sail.  We drank coffee and set about reading the 

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paper, and finally after Tom had finished it and ponderously rolled half a 
dozen cigarettes, he pulled the envelope out of his pocket, and started
very carefully to cut it up the side..[sic]  When I asked he informed me with 
a great air of satisfaction that it was from a friend named Hemingpot.  
Mail day somewhere in Europe may be great, but 235 East 26th, it's
terrific, when it's from someone Tom cares about.
	Tom is now reciting "It was Din, Din, Din!  A beggar with a bullet
through his spleen!"  You have made him feel very mellow. 
      I find I don't like any of my possible remarks of comment on your 
report of what you've been occupied with, so I'll not make any.  
	Incidentally, I hope you don't object to my making so free with your
letters to Tom.  I shall proceed on the assumption that you don't.
We are awaiting news about my brother, who was at Stalag Luft 111
and then liberated.  I am anxious to have Tom meet him for he is a supe-
rior example of a member of my family, in fact of a member of the human
race if I remember him correctly.  To date Tom has met only an aunt, a 
stuffy pompous woman who lives in a fancy apartment on Sutton Place, and 
spends her time being a Grey Lady ( Very worthy Red Cross work) and taking
a reducing course.  We were married at her place, and the fact that it was
two days after Mr. Roosevelt had been elected, with our humble help, and she 
was mourning for Mr. Bewey was enough to obliterate any chances of my ce-
menting a relationship which to me isn't' worth the price of the cement anyway.
Family ties are funny, aren't they, because if you don't like the related
person there aren't any ties at all, but she can't seem to understand that.  
The wedding was at ten in the morning and Tom and I took great pains to arrive
separately; as a result neither of us took the license.  Then to Aunt Mary's 
horror we didn't have ten bucks to give the minister and had to collect a 
kitty.  After all these details were smoothed over and we were stuck
and sitting around drinking the champagne from Bloomingdale's, Tom yawned
and then tried to explain it by saying "I was up late drinking with some 

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Spaniards, and after I finally got to bed, in the middle of the night a 
telegram arrived from some damn fool--" and he turned to/me[sic] and said "What
the hell time was that?"  You'd have enjoyed it.  But of course Aunt Mary
will never forgive it.  
	Right now, sitting in the sunlight on the lower east side, I'd like 
to be sitting in a rowboat I used to sit in in the Big Basin of the New 
Meadows River near Bath, Maine, shouting to the people on the yachts from
Boston, at anchor.  I wonder where some of those boats have been now.  Or
better still I'd like to be on our own good sea-going boat, heading out.  
I bet you do lie awake at night thinking about your boat.  I do, about one
I've never evan had. 
	I wish for you whatever you want out of  he[sic] rest of it, a transfer,
If that's it, and for us a chance to see you not too long away.  
                        
 				[hand written]
				Helen Bennett